He said: “We are in a world of second-best solutions: but it does not seem to me that the level of injustice inherent in the use of CMPs (closed material procedures) in a case of this nature necessarily exceeds either the injustice to the claimant of a case being struck out, or the moral hazard and reputational damage to the intelligence agencies that is caused by settling a case which, had it been possible to adduce all the evidence, would have been fought.

“The cases to which I have been introduced persuade me that there is a small but indeterminate category of national security-related claims, both for judicial review of executive decisions and for civil damages, in respect of which it is preferable that the option of a CMP – for all its inadequacies – should exist.

“No one has sought to persuade me of the need for a CMP in cases not related to national security.”

Mr Anderson added that he believed relations with America had suffered in the wake of the Binyam Mohammed case, where the court of appeal had ordered the publication of a summary if details supplied to the UK by US intelligence agencies.

He added: “The realisation that secret US material could in principle be ordered to be disclosed by an English court, notwithstanding the control principle, and that the government had no power to prevent this from happening, appears to have come as a genuine shock to many influential people in America.”

Earlier this month, Lord Macdonald, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, dismissed fears that America may stop sharing information as “spurious”.

He said he had several "serious run – ins" with the US authorities during his time at the head of the Crown Prosecution Service over evidence that might be revealed in court, but threats to stop co – operating had never materialised.